WHEN ZAMBIA CONFUSES MEMORY WITH WORSHIP

WHEN ZAMBIA CONFUSES MEMORY WITH WORSHIP

Today marks one year since the passing of Zambia’s Sixth Republican President, Edgar Chagwa Lungu Z”L. He was my traditional cousin. Therefore I have the immunity to speak my mind as is.

A year is long enough for emotions to settle. A year is long enough for slogans to fade. A year is long enough for a nation to begin the difficult task of separating memory from mythology.

The dead deserve dignity. Our nation’s history deserves honesty.

President Lungu’s story was extraordinary. He rose from humble beginnings to occupy the highest office in the land. Millions of ordinary citizens saw in him a reflection of their own aspirations. That achievement alone deserves acknowledgement, but leadership is not judged by how a person enters office. Leadership is judged by what a nation becomes under one’s stewardship.

The Zambia that emerged from the Lungu era was a nation carrying heavy burdens with ugly scars. It was a Zambia weighed down by unsustainable debt. A Zambia repeatedly shaken by grand corruption scandals. A Zambia where political intolerance increasingly displaced healthy political competition. A Zambia where many citizens became afraid to speak openly. A Zambia where tribal and regional suspicions found increasing space within our national conversation.

These are not accusations. They are part of our recent history.

The greatest disservice we can do to future generations is to pretend that these realities never existed. Our country will not mature by rewriting history. It will mature by confronting it.

Some will remember Edgar Lungu as a hero. Others will remember him as a disappointment. Some will remember his warmth, accessibility and personal kindness. Others will remember the excesses, abuses and failures that occurred under his administration. Both memories form part of the national record.

The danger begins when political loyalty demands that citizens abandon the truth. Zambia does not require its former leaders to be saints. It requires us to be honest. That is why I love history.

History is patient. History is stubborn. History eventually forces nations to confront themselves. To me, the most important lesson from the Lungu era is not about Edgar Lungu himself. It is about what survives after leaders leave the stage.

Today, many of the same political actors who served under his administration have simply reappeared under different political colours, different party names and different slogans. The branding may have changed, but many of the old methods remain painfully familiar.

Instead of presenting fresh solutions to Zambia’s challenges, some continue to recycle the same politics that wounded our nation in the first place. The politics of division. The politics of tribal mobilisation. The politics of regional suspicion.

The politics that quietly tells one group of citizens that they are entitled to govern while others must forever remain bystanders in their own country, Zambia.

These narratives did not strengthen Zambia then. They will not strengthen Zambia now.

A nation cannot move forward when elections become contests between tribes rather than ideas, between regions rather than policies, between bitterness rather than solutions.

If we are truly to learn from our past, then we must reject not only the mistakes of individual leaders but also the political culture that allowed those mistakes to flourish.

Zambia is bigger than any tribe; bigger than any political party; and bigger than any former president.

Zambia’s future will not be built by those who continually reopen old divisions. It will be built by those with the courage to heal them. It will be built by reforms.

As we reflect on Edgar Lungu’s life one year after his passing, let us resist the temptation to worship the dead and use the dead as weapons of political warfare and division.

Let us learn that corruption eventually becomes a burden upon the poor. Let us learn that tribal politics eventually wounds the nation itself. Let us learn that power is temporary, but its consequences are not, and  let us learn that no Republic can prosper when institutions become weaker than individuals.

The final verdict on every leader belongs neither to supporters nor opponents. It belongs to history, and history is often less emotional, less partisan and far more honest than politics.

May President Edgar Chagwa Lungu rest in peace. May his family find comfort. May our nation find wisdom, and may Zambia never become a country where remembering a leader requires us to abandon the truth, nor a country where telling the truth requires us to abandon our humanity.

The dead deserve dignity. The living deserve honesty. Our Republic deserves both.

Saviour Chishimba
President
United Progressive People (UPP)